By Esther Chisola
Human rights activist Brebner Changala says it is an insult for Zambia to be represented by Lands minister Silver Masebo to the funeral of the late Namibia’s founding president Sam Nujoma.
Last week, late founding president Dr Kenneth Kaunda’s son, Kaweche, said he would want to hear from President Hichilema why he missed the funeral of late Namibian founding president Sam Nujoma, who lived in Zambia’s State House as he was fighting for that country’s Independence.
In an interview with Daily Revelation Friday, Changala backed Kaweche’s sentiments and added that it was important for the President to attend the funeral in recognition of what the late president did for African liberation.
“Sam Nujoma was the last living icon of the Southern Africa liberation movement. It is therefore very important that we should have been represented at the highest level. It was imperative for all intent and purposes that Mr Hakainde Hichilema should have represented Zambia in recognition of Sam Nujoma’s tireless support for independence, freedom and for the dignity of humanity,” he said.
Changala said it had become symbolic in recent months that President Hichilema had detached himself from the league of Southern African Development Community (SADC) and its leadership.
“He’s absconding many international SADC engagements. One wonders, with great shame is, how Mr Hakainde would miss the funeral ceremony of Sam Nujoma and attend to the out-going Commonwealth leader Patricia Scotland where she was being installed as a traditional leader in Mr Hakainde’s home state in Monze at the expense of rendering support to Namibia at their most challenging period in their history, is baffling and shameful,” he said. “To be represented at the funeral of such a huge symbol of our African struggle by a minister of Lands, not even a minister of Foreign Affairs, but a minister of Lands is an insult. Not only to the Namibian people but to the SADC region and Africa as a whole.”
Changala further urged the President to evaluate his priorities and stop being emotionally confrontational towards his neighbors.
“He missed a meeting which would have talked about the way forward in the conference in Congo, he hardly goes to Zimbabwe these days and he is slowly becoming a pariah self-inflicted,” said Changala. “Everybody is talking about him as a puppet. I don’t know how true that is. Probably the signs he has given in the recent months is that of a puppet. Is that of a person who is totally disengaged from the real African struggle.”
Nujoma was one of the many liberation heroes who fought for his country’s independence from the apartheid South African government, while leading Namibia’s Independence party SWAPO (The South West Africa People’s Organisation). He became the leader of Namibia in 1990 after successfully leading that country to independence.
President Hichilema has been criticised for failing to acknowledge Nujoma’s symbolism to Zambia, and failing to take a leaf from the other Southern African Presidents who travelled to Namibia for the funeral, while he chose to attend the installation of Scotland.
